


friendships and love in middle school hallways

by whytho



Category: Paranatural (Webcomic)
Genre: Multi, WELP THIS IS DONE NOW, but man do i love those platonic relationships cause guys. they're twelve., cause more people will arrive, could be viewed with the shipping glasses, is dimitri's last name actually danger? there has been some debate, more tags will be added
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-05-18 07:08:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5903824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whytho/pseuds/whytho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Collin and Ollie become professional match-makers. Match-makers in friendship. They make people friends. </p><p>(Can they make themselves friends?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dimitris' Soulmate is a Nap

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to damgiftshop for beta-ing this, ya made it so much better. ya did bruh. ya did. 
> 
> also, is dimitri's last name actually danger. now it bothers me. i've gotta know.
> 
> yea and also stephen wears a tinfoil hat. what was i doing writing him like a sane person?

How would Collin describe Ollie Oop?

Ollie Oop was the largest person in Johnny’s gang and the entirety of seventh grade. His father was the PE coach, but Ollie hung out with what was known in Collins’ circles as “the wrong crowd.” He was so large and menacing even Suzy wouldn’t interrogate him.

No, those were just facts about him. In all honesty, Collin knew nothing about Ollie Oop. 

~~~~~ 

Collin walked home from school with Dimitri most afternoons after the Newspaper Club meetings would end. They usually took a shortcut through the park that was near-by Dimitri’s house. The sun would be setting, and the trees would look like they were on fire.

He liked walking with Dimitri. Talking wasn’t Dimitri’s forte, since most of the time he was too tired to even stumble home, and it made a nice change from Suzy’s Suzy-ness. The two of them would head through the park at sunset, everything quiet, and it would be nice. 

This was normal, until they found Ollie Oop in the park at sunset one day. 

He was sitting on a bench by a cluster of maple trees, with his eyes closed and his head tilted back. Collin and Dimitri looked at each other in confusion and suspicion, respectively, then walked over to stand in front of Ollie. He didn't notice.

At this point, Collin was perplexed. He didn't know much about Ollie, apart from the very basics, and wasn't sure why he would be outside in a park on a Thursday afternoon instead of off galavanting with his friends. Collin thought that was what he typically did after school. 

The silence, and Collin’s thoughts, were broken by Dimitri’s cough. Snapping his head up, Ollie stared at the two of them. Collin jumped a little, slightly intimidated, while Dimitri just seemed sort of tired. Ollie was very, very confused. 

“Um,” he said, “What are you two doing here?”

Dimitri looked almost scandalized behind the sleepiness. “What are we doing here? What are you doing here?”

Ollie shifted uncomfortably on the bench, then said, “I was, ah, looking for my friends. They went missing, like, an hour ago and I still can’t find them.”

Dimitri’s mouth twisted and Collin was sure that he was thinking about the improbability of Johnny Jhonny going missing, even without his two other friends. Collin too thought it was rather unlikely. Johnny wouldn’t just disappear, unless he was playing hide-and-seek, and even then he’d probably giggle a lot and give himself away. RJ might be able to hide, but Stephen was too loud and brash. All in all, it didn’t make much sense. 

The red light of the sun flared into Collins’ eyes. It was blinding and reflected off Ollie’s head like a flashlight. Still, it made a pretty picture, Collin thought, the sunlight outlining Ollie’s large frame.

Decisively, Dimitri said, “Alright, Collin, we’re going to help him find them.” He pulled Ollie up from the bench, grabbed Collin, and began dragging the both of them behind him. 

Collin and Ollie exchanged a bewildered look.

Collin looked down at his sleeve, rumpled and stretching in Dimitri’s grasp, and smiled the barest bit. Apparently, Ollie Oop was the sort of person that didn’t mind being dragged around by someone smaller than him. Collin rather liked it, even if it was a surprising fact to learn.

They arrived at the school of all places a few minutes later. Dimitri dropped Collin’s sleeve and pointed up.

“That’s where they’ll be, if I’m right,” he said. “And I probably am.”

Collin rubbed his forearm and asked, “Why on earth would they be here?”

“Because Ollie said he looked everywhere, meaning that they’re not anyplace else. And because Johnny’s sending up a big spec-” He coughed, then finished, “Never mind. The point is they’re in here.”

Looking dubious, Ollie watched as Dimitri worked his magic on the lock, but followed him in anyways. Collin thought about how long he would be grounded if he stepped into the building. But then he decided he’d have to get caught first, so he trailed after the both of them. 

The darkening building was eerie, with walls typically bright with fluorescent lights washed by the setting sun. Collin’s footsteps echoed in the hall; Dimitri and Ollie walked like ghosts. The janitors had just left, leaving bright yellow signs all over the wet floor. Collin almost slipped a few times.

The three of them wandered through the empty school, quiet in a soundless building. They arrived in front of the cafeteria, where the lunch tables were still set up and the food was still on the ground, and wordlessly agreed not to go in. They headed down the sixth grade hallway, and found nothing. 

In the seventh grade hallway, it was even worse. Rooms that Collin knew like the back of his hand were otherworldly in the coming darkness, and the lack of light didn’t make it any better. They poked around, but didn’t find much. 

Dimitri pulled his head out of one of the lockers and looked over at Collin and Ollie, standing awkwardly in front of Mr. Spender’s room.

“We should check out the library,” he said.

Collin nodded, cold hands fisted in his shirt. 

Ollie looked just as uncomfortable as Collin, if not more. He seemed to be trying to step lighter, in an effort to keep the silence, despite walking like a cat already. Ollie, it seemed, was the sort of guy that would try to step quieter to match the stillness.

When they reached the library, they all hesitated in front of the door. Collin couldn’t help but remember the first time he’d seen it, on his second day of school, right after he’d joined the journalism club. 

“Isn’t it weird?” he’d asked Suzy, peering through the door on his tiptoes. “The library, I mean. It’s spooky.”

She’d laughed, bumped her shoulder against his, and said, “Of course. That’s what makes it perfect!”

That was the first time he’d ever realized how utterly ridiculous Suzy’s view of perfect was. It was also the first time he was nervous about going inside the library, though it wouldn’t be the last.

The silence hovering over the doorway grew heavier. Dimitri, ever the curious one, took a deep breath, pushed open the door, and was met with an ungodly scream. Collin and Ollie winced; Dimitri yawned.

“Yep,” Ollie said, sticking his fingers in his ears, “That’s them.”

All three of them walked through the door and peered over the balcony railing. There, in the middle of the library floor, was the rest of Ollie’s gang, running around like maniacs. Ollie sighed.

“Guys?” he called down. The lunatics all immediately stopped running around and the screecher, Stephen, lowered his volume a little. 

“Ollie?” Johnny asked, voice slightly muffled. “...S’that you?”

Ollie sighed again, and apparently that was enough of an answer, because Ollie’s friends began trooping up the stairs, heads hung. They stopped in a line in front of Ollie, looking like dogs caught something doing something wrong.

“I'm gonna… go,” Dimitri said in the background, then traipsed down the stairs, eyeing them them the whole time. Collin chose to lean against the railing and examine the spectacle. 

Pushing himself up to full height, Ollie crossed his arms and lowered his eyebrows at his friends. “What, exactly,” he said, “Were you you doing?”

Johnny rubbed his neck and looked sheepish. “Well,” he began. 

Collin watched Dimitri sink into a chair on the floor below. 

“We were sneaking into the school through the window down here, only-”

“Nevermind,” Ollie said quickly, glancing at Collin. 

Most likely because he was part of the newspaper club, Collin thought a little bitterly, and because Ollie probably expected him to write up a newspaper article on their affairs. 

“We should probably be going if we wanna get home before the sun sets,” Johnny mumbled. 

RJ hummed in agreement. 

“I'll go get Dee,” Collin sighed. 

“I'll come,” Ollie said quickly.

They padded down the carpeted stairs, Collin noisy next to a soundless Ollie. Johnny, RJ, and Stephen watched them from the top of the staircase.

Dimitri was slumped in a chair, hair falling over his eyes. He was, Collin realized, asleep and snoring gently. Collin wanted to take a picture, he was so soft and unassuming. 

“Dee?” Collin whispered, shaking him awake. “Di-meee-tri.” 

Dimitri didn't respond.

“Here,” Ollie said. “I can carry him for a bit, until he wakes up.”

Collin looked up at him gratefully. 

Ollie nodded in response, then leaned down and hefted Dimitri over his shoulder like he was a sack of potatoes. 

They made their way up the stairs, Ollie a bit noisier than usual, and shuffled out into the hallway with the others. 

“Um, what now?” Stephen asked, tugging at his hat. 

Collin began to understand that not only would they have to sneak out of their school at dusk, but they had to do it with a hulking guy carrying an unconscious kid, a boy with bright red hair and the muscles of a weightlifter, and a tinfoil-hat wearing conspiracist. RJ was the only person dressed for a break-in, and their hoodie was purple. 

He was about to flip out when Ollie responded, “Well, now we walk down the halls and back outside, and then we go home.”

Collin remembered that they had successfully broken into the school, and could successfully break out of it. His ability to breathe returned. 

The six of them walked back through the halls to the front door. Ollie had a bit of trouble exiting with a limp body over his shoulder, but he managed. After making their way to the front lot, they stood awkwardly again. 

“I guess I’d better take Dimitri home, you guys,” Ollie finally said, shifting the body around. 

Johnny squinted at him, but nodded and took off running- hopefully not to cause more trouble. 

“So,” Collin said, stilted, “I can take you to his place if you’d like?”

Ollie nodded stoically. They set off towards the park again. The silence between them was palpable. 

The sun was almost all the way down as they made their way through the trees, shadows lengthening into night. Collin shivered and hoped that they would get to Dimitri’s house soon. The park was eerier than the school shrouded in darkness. 

They reached Dimitri’s house just before the sun disappeared completely. Dimitri’s mother, a pretty, usually stressed women, opened up on the first knock. 

“Thank goodness,” she sighed. “He gets home quite early, usually, so I was worried when- Is he sleeping?”

Collin startled back from her . “Yes?”

Dimitri’s mother sighed again, then smiled. “Oh, thank you, Collin. He hardly gets any sleep, talking with those strange friends of his, and dealing with the newspaper club on top of that! I swear, it’s almost like he doesn’t want to dream now.”

“Um, yeah, Mrs. Danger. We had a, um, thing at school, so…” 

“It’s fine, sweetie! I’m just glad you got him to go to sleep, God knows he needs it,” Dimitri’s mother said, smiling at Collin. “And I’ve told you before not to go along with that ‘Mrs. Danger’ stuff!”

Collin laughed despite himself, and smiled at her. “Yeah,” he said.

~~~~~

The trip to Collin’s house was just as quiet as the one to Dimitri’s. 

“So,” Collin tried, kicking a stone out of the way, “It’s nice that we got Dimitri to sleep again.”

“Yeah,” Ollie said. “He seemed… really tired, so.”

Collin looked up and smiled at him. 

“Yeah.” 

Ollie smiled back. 

Ollie Oop, it seemed, was the sort of guy to worry when his friends disappeared, and the type of person to sneak into middle schools to find them again. Ollie Oop picked people up and carried them back to their houses when they fell asleep, and, apparently, despite what Collin would’ve thought, Ollie Oop was rather nice.


	2. Isabel and Isaac

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is written as platonic but it can totally be seen as not-platonic, cause don't we all love some izjo? 
> 
> also! this hasn't been edited but probably needs to be, so if there's anything wrong with it just tell me. i'll fix it. (probably).

The second time Collin talked with Ollie, it under less than ideal conditions.

It started when Isabel Guerra picked a fight with Johnny from halfway across the cafeteria.She laughed at him about something, as per usual, and shouted some taunt across the room. Johnny, in response, blew up. He tried to chuck a fistful of Jeff’s mac n’ cheese at her. Isabel grinned manically at him, scooped up Max’s soup and threw it in Johnny’s general direction. 

The soup instead hit another girl, splattering across her curly ponytail and dripping into her eyes. Silence filled the cafeteria, until the dark haired girl picked up her mashed potatoes and flung them across the room. 

Chaos broke out. Students either hurled their lunches at one another or hid under tables. Cody climbed up on a seat to try to calm everyone down and a girl shoved her grapes in his face. Suzy was in her element, running around and shoving microphones in people’s faces and generally acting like a maniac. The twins clutched each other broke down in tears. 

Staring vacantly across the room, Collin’s eyes touched with Ollie. They stared at each other, both ignoring the mess around them, only seeing the message in the other’s eyes: We have to get this to stop.

~~~~~

Ollie liked spaghetti, but not when it was thrown at his head, Collin now knew. He didn’t like ice cream, taste-wise or on his clothing, but loved Italian ices. His favorite flavor was strawberry, but he would settle for mint. He didn’t understand Collin’s adoration of tea, but played along and bought him some anyway. 

~~~~~

Two days after the food fight, Collin was sitting with Dimitri in the courtyard. They were talking about the newspaper, in the stilted way most of Collin’s conversations with Dimitri went. They were friends, Collin knew that, but whenever the two of them tried to talk Collin ended up feeling like Dimitri was speaking a language Collin didn’t quite understand.

When Suzy came barrelling in like a villager being chased by a mob, she was almost a little welcome.

“Collin! Dimitri!” she yelled. “Isabel and Johnny are talking outside the school and I’m eighty per cent sure that they’re going to fight! Get your camera ready!”

Then she sprinted back out and waited for Collin and Dimitri to follow. 

They did, of course, and arrived in front of the school right after she did. They were greeted by the sight of seven people crowding around each other, two of them clearly arguing. 

It was Johnny and Isabel, face to face and nose to nose, almost literally at each other’s throats. Isabel had her hands fisted up in her jacket, small and tight, as if she could only get them still by clenching them. Johnny’s face was bright red, the color of fire hydrants. Both were very close to shouting. 

“Would you like to go?” Isabel asked in a strained, tight voice. 

“Okay,” Johnny replied loudly, clenching his teeth in an almost painful smile. 

Suzy, standing on the edge of the crowd, looked breathless with anticipation. Her recorder was out, held in front of her, and she was frantically scribbling in her notebook.Standing next to her, looking bored, were Ed and Max, Isabel’s friends. At least, Max looked bored. Ed looked like he was cheering on the inside.On the other side, RJ was egging Johnny on, and Ollie was trying to stop him. 

Collin barged in between Johnny and Isabel and thrust his hands out. “Stop it,” he said harshly. “Come on, what’re you doing?” 

Isabel stepped back, looking a little shocked. “We were…” she tried. “We were, uh…”

Collin frowned at her. “You were what, exactly?”

Johnny interrupted, “We were trying’ to talk. About-” he made the mistake of looking at Isabel and his cheeks flared bright red ”-stuff. We were, uh, talking about stuff.”

Collin slowly turned his head to face him. “How about we all talk about this stuff while sitting down.” It wasn’t a question. 

They sat, all eight of them, on the edge of the curb. Isabel, Collin, and Johnny were in the middle, with Max and Dimitri on one side and Ollie, RJ and Ed on the other. Suzy hovered eagerly behind them, tape recorder at the ready.

“Suzy,” Collin said, his voice low, “Maybe you should go talk to Jeff about that article on Trek Wars or whatever?”

“Actually-” Suzy began.

“Suzy, go talk to Jeff about that article on Trek Wars.” Collin didn’t often use his my-phone-is-out-and-911-is-dialed voice, but when he did, Suzy knew when to leave. She scampered off, leaving the other eight of them on the curb.

They were all silent, staring at Collin. Ollie coughed, diffusing the tension a little, and said, “Um, Collin?”

Collin didn’t reply, but Ollie pressed on. “Are you… okay?”

Collin looked straight ahead, across the road, ignored Ollie and said, “So why were you two talking exactly?”

Collin could hear Isabel fidget. She shifted around, clenched and unclenched her hands and messed with her hair. Collin could tell without even looking. Johnny, on the the other hand, was as still as a painting, motionless next to Collin.

“We were… yelling at each other,” he said, voice low.

“Okay,” Collin said, then exhaled. Getting the two of them to discuss anything calmly would be very, very difficult. “Okay,” he said again, “I’m going to go talk to Dimitri, and while I do that, you two can talk about your feelings.”

Isabel spluttered a little as Collin stood and walked a bit towards the right. He sat down on the grass behind Max and Dimitri, picking at it idly, and watched their conversation dwindle down.

“... and Mr. Spender says that-” Max broke off as he noticed Collin. He leaned back and looked at Collin, with an expression that seemed to be judging him. His sentence was left unfinished.

Collin opened his mouth and was about to say something when he saw the look Dimitri was giving him. It was hard, for Dimitri, and surprisingly secretive. Collin closed his mouth and stood up again, albeit a bit more awkwardly. 

Hesitantly, Max said, “It’s not that important, Collin.”

Collin said nothing and raised one eyebrow at him, and Max let Collin walk away. 

He ended up next to Ollie, half-heartedly listening to Ed and RJ’s conversation. Ed was excitedly talking to them about the graphics in a videogame. Collin had never heard either of them so animated about anything, but it was refreshing. Even while moping, drawing in the dirt with a stick, Collin felt a little better listening to them. 

Over his shoulder, Isabel and Johnny were talking- actually talking. Johnny made a joke about ghosts or something, Collin couldn’t quite tell, and Isabel laughed hard. It was a little shaky, their conversation, but Collin felt as though it had something. 

Ollie nudged Collin on the shoulder, interrupting his thoughts and ruining his stick drawing. 

“You good?” he asked quietly.

Collin looked up at him, hunkered down on the curb with shoulders compressing together, and said, “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.”

Ollie didn’t smile, but he looked relieved. “Good. It’s- That’s good.”

“Yeah,” Collin said again. Behind him, Johnny and Isabel were talking quietly, murmuring with their heads pressed close together. Turned away from each other, and from Collin, Max and Dimitri were silent. RJ and Ed’s conversation had lulled, and they were both lying down on the grass with their eyes closed. 

It was good, mostly.

~~~~~

The next day, fifteen minutes before first period, Collin was talking to Max and Dimitri about the school lunches. Their conversation was a little hesitant and fragile, Collin could tell, but Dimitri had grabbed him on his way to the lockers and now he couldn’t leave. It was probably an apology, in the weird Dimitri language very few people spoke. 

The three of them were discussing school pizza compared to school french fries when Isabel Guerra walked past with Johnny Jhonny, the two of them looking as thick as thieves and twice as devious. 

“No, see, because both of them taste like cardboard-” Collin said, then froze. Even Dimitri looked shocked. 

“Um, Isabel,” Max called out, voice weak and confused. “What’re you two doing?”

Isabel grinned devilishly and slung her arm over Johnny, pulling him down to her level. “We’re talking about the different consistencies of toilet paper, and the different properties you have look for when you’re covering a building in it.”

“Oh,” Max said, still looking confused and mildly disgusted. 

Collin sighed and locked eyes with Ollie, all the way across the room. The thought they were both thinking was shining through the crowd between them, and Collin could tell that they were both reconsidering Isabel and Johnny being friends. 

Looking back at Johnny and Isabel, Collin sighed and felt an oncoming ulcer.


	3. Isaac and Information

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to Glowstickia for beta-ing this, it was v helpful and also v nice. yeah.
> 
> if there are any errors, please tell me that i can live my life in something other than shame

Collin marched up to Ollie at the end of second period. 

“We need more people to join,” Collin said, leaning against the locker next to Ollie’s. Ollie sighed, pulling books off the top shelf.

“Isn’t that Suzy’s job?” he asked, sounding weary. Collin peered up at him and felt a little sorry. Piling worries on Ollie wasn’t the nicest thing to do. 

“Yeah,” he said, pushing on. “But Suzy is apparently too focused on Trek Wars to do that, so she asked me for help.”

Ollie raised an eyebrow at Collin. “And you agreed?”

Collin shrugged and leaned back on the lockers. He sighed, looking up at the ceiling, and realized joining newspaper club probably wasn’t the best choice he’d made in sixth grade. 

The lockers were cold against his back, a stark contrast to the warm air of the hallway. The people next to Ollie were loud, talking to each other about something that was really rather unimportant. Collin sighed again, and felt Ollie pause next to him. “Look,” Collin began. 

He was interrupted by Johnny running up and shouting, “Hey man!” at the top of his lungs.

“Oh,” Collin said. 

Johnny looked at him a little funny, but continued. “Me n’ the boys and RJ and Isabel are goin’ to the skatepark after school. You coming?”

Ollie opened his mouth, then seemed to reconsider something. “...Actually, I think I’ll be good.” He slammed the locker shut and continued. “I’ve got work anyway.”

Collin didn’t know Ollie worked, unless he counted shop class as a job. 

“... Mm-kay.” Johnny gave Collin another look. “I’ve gotta go ask Isaac about it, too, ‘cause Isabel says he won’t talk to her, so do you guys know how to get to the basketball field from here?” he asked. 

“If you jump down the stairway at the end of F-Hall, you can get to the janitor’s room. They’ve got secret passageways everywhere,” Collin answered automatically. “Wait, Isaac O’Connor? The ginger?” Ollie lowered his eyebrows at Collin in what he realized was a version of concern. He hastily modified, “The club did an article on the school once, so we had to get blueprints and stuff.” 

Ollie’s eyebrows raised themselves again. Johnny said, “Yeah, the kid with spiky hair. We tried to beat him up once, remember, Ollie?”

Ollie nodded and tilted his head to one side. “Why?”

“Because Isaac and Isabel are in the same club. They have been for years. In sixth grade, they worked on two English projects together and seem to be friends. So why wouldn’t Isaac talk to her?”

Johnny made another face at Collin. With some embarrassment, he realized he was using his Suzy voice. He coughed in an attempt to quiet himself. Ollie stared resolutely forward, into the hallway’s crowds, and said nothing.

Collin said, “Suzy goes on about the Activity Club all the time, and Dimitri talks about them too, so.” 

Johnny scowled and muttered, “I don’t blame him.”

Continuing, Collin said, “But it’s a little weird. I mean, Dimitri goes on and on about how they’re good people that get along, but Isaac doesn’t want to talk to Isabel? It’s- the whole thing’s funny.” He breathed out, long and deep, and turned his back against the lockers again.

Books tucked under his arm, Ollie leaned against the lockers with Collin. He didn’t say anything. Collin heard him sigh, low and long, just like Collin had, and started to feel a little more at ease. Next to them, Johnny took off running, probably to jump down several flights of stairs. Collin feared for his ankles. 

“Um, excuse me?” Violet said from the crowd, with Lisa peering around her shoulders. “This is sort of my locker.”

Collin scrambled away, blushing. Ollie watched clinically, his spot on the lockers secure. 

“Well,” Collin said, fidgeting with his bag. “I think I’m gonna go talk to Isaac.”

“Yeah,” Ollie said slowly. “I’ll talk to you later about the club thing, okay?”

“Hmm,” Collin hummed. Automatically, he finished, “Call me later.”

As he walked away, he realized what he said. He promptly began blushing and clenching his bag straps. Of course Ollie couldn’t call him. He didn’t even have his number. What was Collin doing, acting like they were close? He blushed harder, and resolved himself not to think about. Hopefully Ollie would do the same. 

~~~~~

Ollie didn’t usually say much, growing up in a house where actions were greater than words. His father was straight-laced and didn’t dally around sentences, but Ollie had a much lighter, slightly sarcastic tone when spoken to. Sometimes Collin suspected his friends couldn’t tell when he was being serious. 

Collin, though, like talking to Ollie. When he was talkative, he had something to say, and when he was quiet, it was calm silence. When he was with his friends, he was the stable current beneath the conversation. When he was with Collin, he could be the leading force behind it. 

Collin liked it either way. 

~~~~~

Finding Isaac O’Connor was proving to be difficult. 

Collin had checked everywhere: the Activity Club’s room, the seventh grade hall, and the cafeteria. He had even tried the library, to no avail. Eventually, he came to rest at Max’s locker, in the hopes he could lead Collin to the elusive anime boy.

“Isaac?” Max asked, dropping his bat in the bottom of the locker. It clanged dully, landing on his books. Max gave Collin a look- he seemed to be getting quite a few of them nowadays. “Why do you need to talk to Isaac?”

Collin fiddled with his collar. “I was going to ask him about those stories he’s been writing, for the newspaper.”

“Isaac writes?” Max asked, then slammed his locker shut. “No, never mind that, the point is- Isaac’s not going to want to talk to you.”

“Why?” Collin said defensively. Max gave him another stare. 

“Because Isaac, like every other normal person in this school, probably isn’t going to want to talk to the newspaper club. Besides,” Max said, turning away. “...He has a thing against authority figures.” His face was unreadable.

“Oh,” Collin said. He shifted from foot to foot, thinking. “Can you at least tell me where he’d be?”

Max sighed like a forty five year old, far too harsh and tired for a seventh grader. Pointing out the window, he said, “Check in the front lot.”

Collin placed his hands flat on the window sill, peering out into the parking lot. There, to his surprise, he saw Isaac. The ginger was sitting under one of the trees and Collin thought he could see a sandwich hanging from his mouth. 

Spinning back around, Collin exclaimed, “Thanks!” But Max was already gone. 

~~~~~

Running to the front lot only took a couple of minutes, but for Collin they felt more like hours. Long distance running, after all, was not his thing. 

He arrived just as Isaac was standing up from beneath the tree.

“Wait!” he panted, hands on his knees. “Can you… give me… a few seconds?”

“Um, yeah,” Isaac replied as his face contorted with a look of surprise and confusion.

Collin stood bent over for a few more minutes, trying to catch his breath. The crowd leaving the school parted around the two of them. Collin started to wish he had tried harder in PE. 

After he’d caught his breath, Collin straightened and attempted a casual pose. 

“So,” he tried. Isaac was looking at him funny, like everyone had been, and Collin vaguely considered they all thought he was being out-of-character. Of course, Isaac had only spoken to Collin once before this, but the sentiment was still there. “So,” he repeated, still a little breathless. “I was hoping I could talk to you about the-”

“Collin!” Suzy shouted, bounding up out of nowhere, Dimitri at her side. She wrapped her arm around Collin in a deathtrap, then noticed Isaac, standing uncomfortably next to Collin, and peered up at him, eyes going wide.

“Collin,” she said in a hushed tone, squeezing Collin tighter. “Is this Isaac O’Connor? The guy that wrote the stories people were clamoring for?”

“Um,” Collin said intelligently. “Yes?”

“Isaac!” she cried, leaping off Collin and vigorously shaking Isaac’s hand. He was shocked, with eyes wide and arm limp in her grasp. “I’m such a fan,” Suzy said, with the sort of gleam in her eyes that Collin both hated and admired. “Could you talk to us for a bit?”

“Um, sure,” Isaac said, bewildered, and that was how Collin ended up standing in front of the school with Suzy, Isaac O’Connor, and a very bored Dimitri, interviewing Isaac on his ridiculous fanfiction.

Collin sighed and tried to block out Suzy. It was crisp outside, chill even, and he found himself wishing he had a jacket. Dimitri didn’t have one either, but he was never cold, and Suzy ran off fire and life and everything warm. Collin, on the other hand, had to deal with being freezing. He sighed.

In his pocket, something started buzzing; Dimitri looked at him like Collin needed to make the noise stop. He scrambled to grab it, stiff fingers scraping inside his pocket. When he flipped it open, the screen displayed an unknown number. 

He brought the phone to his face and said, hesitantly, “Hello?”

“Hi,” Ollie’s voice said. Collin nearly dropped the phone.

“Um,” he began, “What?”

Ollie was quiet for a few seconds, then said, “You… told me to call you.”

“Well, yeah,” Collin said. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with his hand. “But we don’t have each other's numbers, and…”

In the background, Johnny yelled, “Max got it for him!” Collin hoped that he wasn’t on speaker. 

Quietly, Ollie said, “I, um, got it from Max.”

“Yeah,” Collin replied, pressing the arch of the phone against his ear, shoving cold fingers into just as cold pockets.

“I can see you from the window,” Ollie said suddenly, and Collin isn’t sure what to do with that information. “You’re- uh, you’re talking to Isaac.”

“Well,” Collin said. “Technically, Suzy’s talking to Isaac.”

The silence on the phone line was heavy. Collin tried to squint into the school’s windows, but the sun reflected off them and straight into his eyes. From Ollie’s line, he heard echoed whoops and shouts, like people in stairways.

“Sorry,” said Ollie, unabashedly. “We’re coming down.”

Collin said nothing, as he was mildly shocked from a) the loud,animalistic noises coming out of his phone, and b) the fact that Ollie just said they were coming to him. Even Suzy, still firing questions at Isaac, looked a little concerned about the sounds. Dimitri, who had overheard the whole conversation, seemed to be ready to run away. 

“Well,” Collin managed, then promptly snapped the phone shut and shoved it into his pocket. 

The group was silent for a few seconds, until Isaac, looking very confused, asked, “Are you okay?”

Collin turned to Isaac, Isaac with his spiky orange hair and his huge eyes, and felt a little sorry for him. To see one so young be lost to Johnny’s insanity was truly a shame. 

“We’re going to get an incoming soon,” Dimitri said, with the same air of calmness that he always had.

Collin felt like screaming a little, and Johnny’s gang came rushing out of the building.

Amongst the final dregs of students still in the parking lot, Johnny’s gang was a force of nature. They swept down the stairs, jostling students and fluttering papers off who knows where, and ran full tilt towards the newspaper club. 

Collin shut his eyes and braced himself for five hundred pounds worth of impact, but got nothing. Cracking his eyes open, he saw, teetered in front of him, posed on the tips of their toes, Johnny, RJ and Stephen. Behind them, Ollie was looking very uncomfortable. 

“Um, what?” Collin asked.

RJ untangled themselves from the pile and began brushing off their clothes. “Here,” they said, pulling out a tiny pocket camera and tossing it to Dimitri. “The pictures.”

Collin watched in confusion as Dimitri turned on the camera and began beeping through photos. He wasn’t the only one, too: Isaac was bewildered. Suzy and the rest of the Jang, on the other hand, looked unperturbed. 

Collin tried to ignore the camera deals going on in front of him, and instead focused on Ollie. 

“Uh, hi,” he said. 

“Hi,” he replied, with his phone still out. “Is that, uh-” he nodded at Isaac.

“That’s Isaac O’Connor,” Collin said. 

“Is he the one you wanted to join the newspaper club?” Ollie asked, twisting down to face Collin.

“What? No,” he told him. “I was just… a little curious, I guess. About the whole- the whole thing.”

“Hmm,” was Ollie’s response, slow and heavy in his throat. 

They watch everyone else for a little while: Suzy, firing off questions at bullet speed, while Isaac looked like he was dying. Stephen had, for some reason, slung his arm around Isaac’s neck and was whispering something in his ear; Isaac seemed terrified. RJ was peering over Dimitri’s shoulder, and the both of them were smiling at something. 

Johnny was climbing up a tree somewhere, but the scene was still idyllic. 

“You should, you know,” Ollie murmured next to Collin. 

“Hmm?” he asked, not looking at him. 

“Think about letting Isaac join the newspaper club,” Ollie replied. Before Collin could get anything out, he said, “Everyone already knows he writes those- story things, and it’d be easier to get them to everyone if he just had a column or something.”

Collin considered it, as he looked out across the lot, at how easily Isaac slid into Suzy and Stephen and Dimitri, and he thought about how they all fit together like their school was a puzzle and they were the pieces. Everything piece had its place,even if sometimes they would switch and fiddle and roll into a different spot, Dimitri did that, Collin thought, when he slid from whoever he hung out with in the sixth grade to the newspaper, and Collin half-wished that he could slid in and fit better. 

Ollie nudged him on the shoulder, still turned away from him. 

“Yeah?” Collin asked, his voice a little thick. 

“Do you wanna come ask him?” Ollie said as gravelly as always. 

Collin nodded, wordless, and followed Ollie to the group of people.


	4. Cody and RJ

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> RJ, it seems, is very good at being sick. Cody, apparently, is quite excellent at being nice. Collin, some say, can give people umbrellas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> do you know how much i regretti the spaghetti?? lots. the spaghetti is made of regretti. i haven't slept in 34 hours and i still need to do homework. i am made of regret. 
> 
> speaking of regret, this badly needs to be edited but it isn't. i'm sorry. for the spagetti also but mostly the mistakes. 
> 
> but yeah! cody is my bby and rj, as you might know, is my bby, so talk to me about the bbies. what is the plural of bby???

In the Mayview Middle School bus circuit, there was one bus that wasn’t technically a school bus.

It was an old city bus, refurbished after Baxborough had accidently left it in Mayview. They hadn’t wanted it back, and for good reason. The thing was relatively disgusting: old and smelly, and just about covered in used gum. On top of that, it only had about twenty seats, meaning that some people were left to stand. Every year, kids would pray they didn’t get it as their bus for the next nine months, and every year, some of them invariably did. 

This school year, it was Collin’s turn. Most days he tried to walk, but on the rainy afternoons, he boarded the sticky, smelly bus and tried to survive. On a gray, wet Wednesday, he found himself going through the same thing. 

Hopping up off of the pavement, he climbed to the top of the steps and scanned the floor for someone he knew. There were only about twelve people on it, all desperate to get a seat, but to his relief he saw Cody sitting in the middle. 

Making his way over, Collin asked, “Hey, is anyone, uh, sitting here?”

Collin looked up and said brightly, “Nope! You can if you want!”

“Oh, thanks.” Collin sat and dumped his bag at his feet, trying not to feel out of place. He’d only spoken to Cody a couple of times and he’d ridden on this particular bus even less than that. Making conversation was a bit hard, that was for sure.

Cody didn’t seem to have those qualms. He dove straight into a talk about the weather, a topic Collin simultaneously found exhausting and fascinating. At least, it was fascinating enough to keep Collin’s mind off the smell.

It was all going well, all eight minutes that they talked, until the RJ and Ollie sprinted through the bus doors. They just made it through, but had enough forward momentum going that they ended up in the middle of the bus. In the middle of the bus, right in front of Collin and Cody. 

“Oh,” Ollie tried, awkward. RJ was leaning against him, eyes closed and swaying on their feet, and Ollie looked like he didn’t know what to do.

“Hi,” Collin replied, just as uncomfortable. Cody, on the other hand, had ignored them to focus on RJ.

“Are they alright?” he asked, sounding so genuinely worried Collin wanted to soothe him. 

Ollie glanced down at RJ’s small, tight figure. “Uh, yeah,” he said, “Mostly. They’ve got a cold, so I  
m taking them home on the bus today.“

Cody’s mouth parted a little, and he hopped to his feet so quickly he almost got whiplash. “You can take my seat!” he exclaimed, and Collin wanted to soothe him even more. 

Cody, Collin decided, was too nice. Even if it made him extremely likeable and beloved by all, it also meant that he would be stretched too thin, his heart spread across multiple people. Even worse, Collin found everything and everyone fun and nice. It was too much for Collin, and he lolled his head back on the seat.

RJ, too, didn’t be able to take it. They broke into a fit of coughing when they saw Cody’s face and couldn’t seem to stop. Bending over, they sunk into the open seat, seemingly unable to quiet themselves. Cody hovered over them, gripping the floor-to-ceiling pole and looking concerned. 

Ollie, too, hovered a bit, until RJ slipped onto Collin’s shoulder. They relaxed, then, for whatever reason. Maybe Collin had a soft shoulder. The boys hovering calmed a little, too.

The four of them were silent for the next two bus stops, until Ollie asked, “Um, do either of you know which stop is RJ’s? I’m supposed to get off with them, but, uh, I only know where their house is.”

Cody perked up and stopped gripping the pole quite so tightly. “We get off on the same stop!” 

Ollie looked relieved, until Cody continued, “I can take them home if you’d like!”

Uneasily, he said, “Well, I think-”

“You should let him,” Collin interrupted. Glancing at Cody, he said, “Cody… could take care of them, right?”

“Yeah,” Cody replied, looking steadily at Ollie with bright, calm eyes. RJ twisted on Collin’s shoulder, but no one really paid them much notice. 

Ollie faltered. “Fine.”

Cody smiled again, and as the screeched to a halt, he gently lifted RJ out of their seat and half pulled, half pushed them out into the wet street. Collin watched the two of them walk down the sidewalk, tucked underneath Cody’s umbrella, RJ leaning on Cody. It was almost cute, he reflected, as the bus drove off and the two of them faded into blurs. 

“Oh,” Ollie said behind Collin, and he twisted back around to face him. 

“Hmm?”

“I, uh. My house is in the other direction,” Ollie mumbled. Collin would’ve sworn that he was blushing. 

“Oh,” Collin repeated. “If you want, you can take mine?”

Ollie was definitely blushing now, Collin could tell. “That’s- I couldn’t. You’d get wet.”

“We could, uh, walk to my house first?” Collin suggested. “Like, so that you could take me home without it. Getting me wet.” 

Ollie nodded, slowly, and went quiet. The bus began screeching again, the noise grinding right into Collin’s ears. It was so grating that Collin almost missed that fact that it was his stop. 

“Oh!” he exclaimed, leaping up and grabbing his book bag. He dragged a surprised Ollie off, thanking the bus driver profusely, and shoveled around in his backpack for an umbrella. 

Ollie stood in the rain for a few seconds watching him search, before reaching over and plucking an umbrella from Collin’s hand. Collin opened and closed his mouth like a fish in response. Wordlessly, Ollie opened the umbrella up over the both of them, and they made their way down the street. 

It was chilly outside. Collin may have had his coat on him, but it didn’t protect his face from the biting cold. Unthinking, he scooted a little closer to Ollie, then realized what he was doing and stopped. 

They made their way to Collin’s house quietly, only talking when Collin directed Ollie through the turns. It was a long walk, though not much longer than the one to school, and most of the sound accompanying them was the noise of the rain, dripping onto the umbrella and the street. It was peaceful, Collin thought, and quiet. He rather liked it. 

“So, uh, do you like the rain?” Ollie asked, breaking the silence. 

“Hmm?” Collin tilted his head towards him. 

“I mean, you look different.” Ollie struggled to find the words. “When it's sunny, you glare at it and act hot, but now you’re. Calmer, I guess.”

Collin thought about it for a little, silence filling the space between them. “I guess,” he said quietly. “It’s nice. When it's quiet, I mean.”

Ollie looked down at Collin, tall and strong and struggling to keep the umbrella over his head, and Collin did feel rather relaxed. 

 

“Oh!” he exclaimed. “This one’s mine.” 

As Collin pulled out his keys, Ollie looked up at the house, inspecting it. Collin tried to view it as he was seeing it, as something other than the big, blue house he had grown up in. It was hard. His father's gardening shoes were still sitting muddy on the front porch, and the ugly lawn gnome was still resting beside them, hiding a spare key.

“It’s a nice place you’ve got here,” Ollie tried as Collin unlocked the front door. 

“Thanks,” he replied. “Though it’s my parents’, really, and- oomph!” He was cut off by his cat barrelling out of the door and straight into Collin’s knees. 

At the sight of a fluffy, crotchety old cat climbing up Collin’s shirt in the front hallway of his house, Ollie froze. Completely shocked, standing only his eyes moving, the edge of the umbrella tipped over his shoulders and Collin realized that it was rather very small. 

“Um,” he started eloquently, pulling open the hall closet. “Let me just get you a bigger umbrella, um…” He pulled out his father’s umbrella, the largest one the family owned, and presented it to Ollie. 

Ollie blinked. “It’s fine, Collin, I can just use this one.”

Collin wet his mouth, a little unsure. “No, take it.”

Ollie blinked at him again, the slowly pulled the umbrella out of Collin’s grasp. “Thank you, then.”

With that, Collin watched Ollie’s large frame turn back around to the gray street. He was making his way across the wet sidewalk, hidden beneath the the massive umbrella, and Collin hesitated for a split second. Typically, this was where he and Ollie stopped, at a brief conversation and maybe a gesture of friendship. Collin licked his lips again. The weight of his cat was heavy around his knees, and for some inexplicable reason he found himself lunging out the door.

“Ollie!” he cried, waving his hand. A misty figure turned back around to face him, and Collin braved on. “Tomorrow, I’m going to that new ice cream shop with Dimitri and Max, and, uh. If you stop by, you could drop off the umbrella?” he shouted.

Collin wasn’t even sure Ollie noticed his shouts. Nonetheless, the tall, dark figure raised both of his arms back at Collin, as if he had heard, and Collin almost blushed straight to his hairline. 

His cat clawing at his feet, Collin sank back against his front door and hoped the rain would end soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also. also. you know what you should do? comment. yeah. that should be a thing you can do. 
> 
> (this is unrelated but can someone please tell me if Dimitri's last name is Danger. I wanna make fun of him. Someone ask Zack. let me make fun of Dimitri.)


	5. Isabel and Suzy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact about this chapter: it was the first one i ever wrote for this fic, and then i went back and looked through it and was like "this needs several more chapters of character and relationship stuff" and now it still feels ooc. thanks to damgiftshop for making it lots better though, aka she edited and was amazing.

Isabel and Suzy, otherwise known as the most dreaded pair in the entirety of Mayview Middle School.

They were infamous. Both were constantly glaring at each other, total enemies, yet in a weird sort of peace. Rumors even say that they once went to the movies together, and even shared a bucket of popcorn.

For some reason, though, Collin usually found himself being regarded with yet another tale about Isabel Guerra whenever he tried to talk to Suzy about her. They ended in Suzy stammering, Isabel knowing all about it, and Collin regretting ever joining the journalism club. 

So when, on one warm sunny afternoon, Ollie proposed making them friends, Collin shuddered. 

They were sitting on a bench outside Sweet Confections and Toppings, Italian ices in their hands, when Ollie began, “So, I think I found some other people to help today.”

Collin side-eyed him, lips pursed. Ollie knew he didn’t like to mix sweetness- specifically, Italian ices with Ollie- with work. Ollie shrugged in response, then licked his lips. 

“You aren’t going to like it much,” he said, and Collin side-eyed him harder. “...It’s Isabel and Suzy, okay?”

Collin abandoned the side-eye and swung around to face him, protests on his lips. Ollie raised a hand and said, “I know it’s ridiculous, but I was talking to Johnny earlier and he mentioned that Isabel said she really hated when she had to hang off a tree branch to make Suzy talk to her, and I know you hate when Suzy gets all defensive and Izzy hangs off trees, so… I thought maybe.”

Collin considered it for a few seconds. Then he thought about it a little longer, and realized that Ollie was right. Setting Isabel and Suzy would not only stop their weird rivalry thing, but also make sure that they were civil enough to finish the joint projects they were always assigned to. It was perfect.

Smiling a little, Collin looked up at Ollie and wordlessly high-fived him. 

Their first plan of attack was simple. It would only involve Ed, a bucket of whipped cream, and a potential newstory. Ed would stall Isabel in the courtyard, Ollie could dump the whipped cream near them, and Collin would make up a story so Suzy would come running. 

(“Why should I do this?” Ed had asked, when they’d first come to him for help. He’d leaned against a cabinet, smiling, as Collin scowled at him. 

“Do you want them to be friends?” Ollie had asked. 

“Yeah,” Ed had said easily, “But I'm not sure what that has to do with you two lovebirds.”

Collin had spluttered and Ollie had seemed a little speechless. Both of them stepped away from each other a little. Collin had sort of missed the warmth of Ollie’s side.

“We are not lovebirds,” Collin had managed. Ed smiled at him, unreadable behind those thick glasses. “We are just friends, but we would really like Isabel and Suzy to be friends too.” 

Ed smiled yet again, then he'd shrugged. “Sure,” he said, and that was it.)

Collin knew it was ridiculous. Suzy wouldn’t just sprint after anything that could turn into a news story, after all, and Isabel wouldn’t just trip into whipped cream. 

Collin was wrong on both accounts: Isabel walked right into the three-foot tall mound of deliciousness, and Suzy took off after Collin told her there was a fight going on. Sighing, Collin jogged after her. Really, he wouldn’t have done this at all if it had entailed exercise. 

Suzy reached the courtyard quickly, but looked very confused when there was no fight there. When the only thing in sight was Isabel Guerra, sitting in the middle of- was that whipped cream? her expression seemed to say- laughing her heart out, Suzy’s eyebrows nearly knitted themselves together.

Collin would swear that he saw Suzy’s heart skip a beat when she and Isabel locked eyes. It was an almost magical moment, with Isabel covered in sticky white stuff and Suzy still red-faced from sprinting. Silently, Suzy walked across the courtyard and extended a hand to Isabel, who took it. They were still both staring at each other. 

The moment was interrupted by Ed, who was trying to pick up whipped cream and giggling. 

Suzy dropped Isabel’s hand and, clearing her throat, asked, “So, did you happen to see any fights around here recently?”

Isabel smiled, like it was the easiest thing in the world to smile at her rival, and replied, “Nope. Just this enormous pile of sugary goodness that needs approximately two more people to jump in it.”

Suzy froze for a second and stared at her, blue eyes going gray. Collin winced. Abruptly, she stepped away from Isabel. Isabel’s smile faded a little. 

“Well,” Suzy said, pulling out her notebook and furiously flipping through it, “We have to go find this fight, wherever it is, so we both have to go.” She turned and walked off, her shoulders hunched close together. Collin winced harder. Isabel stared after Suzy. 

Collin made eye contact with Ollie, hanging out of an upstairs window. Raising his eyebrows, Ollie looked down at Collin, who shrugged and shook his head. Ollie sighed- Collin could tell from a story below him. 

~~~~~

Their next attempt to make Isabel and Suzy closer was an old one but a good one: the classic lock-two-people-in-a-closet-together move. They’d lure Isabel into the library, pull Suzy out of newspaper club headquarters, and shove them both into the copy machine room. After all, the only thing the two of them could do in a copy machine room was copy things, so it was a guaranteed plan of success. 

Ollie coaxed Isabel into the library using the same excuse as last time, a meeting with Ed. (This time they bribed Ed with frozen waffles and kept him tuckered up in the cafeteria.) She followed, surprisingly willing for a person that, 24 hours ago, was covered in whipped cream because she followed Ollie somewhere.

Suzy, too, came to the library when asked. She said that she needed to do some work, so Collin wasn’t sure if he’d lured her there or if it was her choice, but she came anyway. 

“Collin,” she griped, juggling a stack of papers, “Can you please help me with these? We’re gonna need at least fifty copies; Isaac’s stuff is selling like hotcakes.”

Collin’s eyes widened, and he took the chance. “Actually, Suzy, I can go work on the article about the soccer team,” he said, turning her around and steering her up the steps to the copy room. “You should go copy those, in the copy room, because I, um, don’t really know how to work the copy machine.” 

Suzy spluttered a little and dropped a few papers, but Collin continued, “Also, you don’t actually know anything about soccer, Suzy. You once called it, and I quote, ‘the most ridiculous sport ever to grace the face of the earth with it’s presence.’”

Suzy was frowning, Collin could tell, and was probably going to tell him that those quotes were strictly off the record. Her shoulders had set, and she had forgone most of the papers to cross her arms. She spun to face him- she was frowning, yup- and Collin could see Ollie and Isabel inside the copying room staring at them.

“But-” Suzy protested.

“No buts,” Collin told her. Then he opened the copy room door, pulled Ollie out, shoved Suzy in, and locked it. 

Suzy stared at him from inside copy machine room, Isabel gesturing frantically behind her. Collin looked everywhere but ahead, saying, “I’ll be back in an hour. Finish copying!”

~~~~~

One hour later, Collin wasn’t finished with his job. It was rather difficult to write an article on a soccer team when a) the school didn’t actually have one, and b) Collin knew nothing about soccer. In a desperate attempt to finish, Collin had surrounded himself with a fortress of books, and blocked out everyone but Ollie. It wasn’t really working. 

“Collin?” Ollie said gently, shaking his shoulder. Collin looked up from the paper, face guilty. 

“Yes?” he asked.

Ollie sighed. “Are you okay? I think you’ve had your nose touching ink for the past ten minutes.”

Collin rubbed his nose, then stopped caring. He laughed hollowly and leaned against Ollie. He was quiet for a few seconds, until he said, “Soccer teams are the worst. We don’t even have a soccer team, yet Suzy wants to write an article on one.” He twisted and buried his face in Ollie’s shoulder. Patting him on the back, Ollie rested his chin on Collin’s head. 

“If you don’t know much about soccer,” Ollie suggested, ”I could teach you.”

“You know soccer?” Collin asked incredulously.

Ollie titled his face down, and Collin could feel his mouth curve in humor. Collin smiled a little in response. It was warm in the library, or maybe that was just heat that Ollie was projecting. He was like a big space heater. Collin liked it. 

“Yeah, I know soccer,” Ollie said. “My dad is a gym teacher, after all.”

Collin burrowed further into Ollie, and was about to say something when the door to the copying room burst open. Suzy and Isabel stood at the top of the stairs leading to it, stacks of paper overflowing in their arms. Grinning, Isabel slid down the banister, then shoved her papers at Ollie. 

“We made the copies,” she said, breathing hard, and winked.

Collin spun around and hide his face in Ollie’s shirt. He didn’t leave until both Suzy and Isabel had left the library, until Ollie had given the soccer assignment back to Suzy and carefully carried Collin back outside to the courtyard. 

They sat, on the bench they’d covered in whipped cream twenty-four hours previously, utterly exhausted. At least, Collin was exhausted. Ollie seemed unaffected. 

Collin faced Ollie and said, “Can we please not do this,” without even allowing it to be a question. 

Ollie laughed a little.

~~~~~

Two days later, when Collin and Ollie were watching a movie, they saw Isabel and Suzy heading to the next thriller flick together. They only had one popcorn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes, more isabel. i love her. everyone should love her. she's rad, guys. love isabel. 
> 
> also! if any of you care, there should be ~one more chapter, if this all works out well. do you guys care? do any of you read my author's notes? do any of you read this? is the universe real? should i probably go to sleep soon?


	6. Violet and Lisa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Violet and Lisa, Collin discovers, don't need that much help with their relationship. 
> 
> He might need some, he discovers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao this is incredibly late.. probably no one will read this bc they've forgotten its existance. 
> 
> would you believe me if i told you this has been written for like a month?
> 
> no. i wouldn't either. it's the truth tho

When Cody, Jeff, and Ed tumbled into the journalism club’s room one day, Collin wasn’t sure what they were doing. 

He was sitting on the desk with Ollie, laughing and trying to show him cat videos. The sun was streaming through the blinds, Suzy was home sick with a cold, and everything was good, until three hooligans walked into the room. 

“Look,” Cody said, without even a hello. “We need you to set up Violet and Lisa.” 

Ollie’s face froze in a blank expression before he could interrupt them, and Jeff continued earnestly. “We know you set up Isabel and Suzy, so could you please do this?”

“What?” Cody asked, abandoning the conversation for a second and turning to face Jeff. “I thought Isabel was dating Johnny.”

“No!” Jeff said, confused. “Johnny’s going out with Max.”

“I thought Isaac was going out with Max!”

“...Who’s Isaac?” Jeff asked desperately, as Ed smiled mysteriously in the background. Collin was getting a headache. 

“No one’s dating anyone,” Ollie tried to calm the both of them down, sitting them in the office’s two chairs. “Besides, we’re all middle schoolers. Us dating would be like adults watching cartoons; it’s not exactly right.”

Cody twisted his lips and pouted a little, folding his hands in his lip. “Ollie,” he tried looking gravely serious. “They really, really like each other. Lisa braids Violet’s hair, like, everyday, and-”

“-And one time Ed dared Violet to kiss Lisa on the cheek and she did and then they both blushed till eternity!” Jeff interrupted, and Collin was fairly sure that his eyes were shining underneath all that hair. Ollie sighed inaudibly; Collin patted his back in an awkward sort of way. Ed leaned against the wall like a brooding anti-hero, eyes hidden behind glaring glasses.

Collin leaned closer to Ollie and said, low and quiet, “If they like each other, then it shouldn’t actually be that hard to get them to go to the mall or something.”

Ollie sighed again, still silently, still without expression, and nodded.

Cody asked seriously, “Does this mean you’ll help us?” 

Against all of his better judgement, Collin nodded. Ollie exhaled once more, then nodded along.

~~~~~

“Okay.” Jeff leaned forward over the card table, looking intense in a nerdy way. “So I was thinking that you guys could try to-”

“No,” Collin interrupted. The light over the table was glaring into his eyes, and he had to squint like a thriller cop interrogating someone. “We need to watch the two of them first. Ed has suffered through a lot of embarrassment just trying to make people friends. He’d hurt more when he tries to get them to date.”

“Hey,” Ed pouted, crossing his arms and forgoing the dramatics. “Why would I do this?”

Cody turned away from the table, back to Ed, and gave him a big, doe-eyed look. “Ed,” he started, sounding too pure and sweet and confused for middle school. “Why wouldn’t you want to help our friends find love?”

Ed fidgeted nervously, and Collin thought that he looked more than confused. “Well,” he tried, but Collin interrupted again. 

“Okay, I need all of you to take notes on whatever the two of them do for the next week. And I’m going to try sitting with you guys at least once, just to check the place out.” Collin attempted to sound hard and brash, to stop Jeff and Cody from going off on another tangent. Ollie shifted nervously behind him, though, so it may not have been working. 

Ed spoke up again. “Um, won’t Suzy notice?”

Collin squinted at him. “Do you really think she would?”

Ed looked panicked like he didn’t understand the question. Ollie mumbled, “I mean, you are one of two other people at her lunch table, so…”

Collin didn’t respond. “After that’s done, then we can start with plans. And it would be better if it were slow, too. Make them talk to each other more.”

Jeff nodded, serious. 

~~~~~

Collin didn’t think sitting at a different lunch table would be that different. Apparently, it is a matter of national importance. 

When he first walked past his normal table, he thought Suzy would have a heart attack. Her eyes went wide and her mouth formed a little oh, the perfect woman in shock. He was fairly certain she stopped breathing, and hoped the cafeteria had begun inserting fainting couches in between the lunch tables. 

As he sat down with Cody and Jeff, even they were shocked. “I knew you were going to sit here,” Cody breathed quietly, “But I didn’t know it was going to be so thrilling.” 

Collin sighed and tried to choke down the school’s tater tots. “So,” he said to the rest of the table. “How are you guys doing?”

They stared at him. Ed, covered in paint and possibly blood, looked indifferent, but everyone else apparently thought Collin had grown a second head. 

“Well,” Max said eventually. “I’m slightly better now that I’ve seen Suzy almost have a heart attack, so thank you for that.”

Just like that, the table returned to normal. Cody resumed telling some story, Ed continued on with his painting/ possible satanic ritual, and Violet and Lisa… well.

Collin had never seen anything like Violet and Lisa. They were talking about music or something, with occasional interruptions from Max. It was cute almost, Lisa leaning into Violet, listening to her every word. Waving her hands about, Violet was more animated than Collin would have believed. 

“It’s like, if they’re gonna be ridiculously heavy-metal, they should go all in, y’know? They’re all trying to maintain some seriousness, but you can’t do that when your album covers are literally scientific anomalies, and they know that,” Violet said, eyes alight, hands gesturing to something invisible. Lisa stared at her, looking dopey- that may have been her eyes, though, Collin reflected.

“No, no,” Max interjected, but Collin had seen enough. He turned his attention back to his tater tots, but for the rest of lunch, he could do nothing but replay Violet and Lisa’s scene in his head. 

He caught Ollie at the end of lunch, catching him by the end of his sleeve. “Hey.”

“Yeah?” Ollie asked immediately. 

Collin bit the edge of his lip and said slowly, “I think we can do this. The- the thing.”

“...Yeah?” Ollie asked, his eyes unexpectedly soft. 

“Yeah,” Collin affirmed. 

~~~~~

Collin first heard about the party from Max, sitting at his lunch table again. It was a quiet day, a Tuesday. Violet was absent, so Lisa was acting a bit different, and Jeff had brought McDonald’s for lunch. 

“Mr. Garcia’s birthday is next Friday,” Max said,interrupting Jeff’s spiel on french fries. No one asked him about it, but he continued, “He’s going to have a party. In the school cafeteria. Almost the entire eighth grade is going to be invited.”

“What?” Collin asked, peeling an orange. “Why?”

“I’m not sure,” Max scowled. Next to him, Ed grinned, and Isabel Guerra smiled like the Cheshire Cat two tables away. “Mr. Spender said to tell your friends there would be games, music, and cake, though I’m not sure it’ll be able to hold up to the picture I’ve painted in my head.

“Why would he even have his birthday party at school?” Cody asked. “Shouldn’t you spend it with your closest friends?”

Ed spoke up. “He said it was something like a school tradition, I think. And besides, aren’t we Mr. Garcia’s closest friends?”

Everyone stared at him

“Will there be Risk?” Lisa asked after a pause. “I’ll come if there’s Risk.”

Collin shot up from his chair, dropping the orange. “Lisa, there’s definitely gonna be Risk,” he said over his shoulder, then marched over to Ollie’s lunch table. Bending over Ollie’s shoulder, he muttered in his ear, “Hey, are you busy next Friday?”

Ollie turned to face him. “Um, no?”

“Good. We’re going to this party thing at the school.”

“A party?” Johnny asked across from them. “What party?”

Collin regarded him for a second. “Mr. Garcia’s birthday party. We need to do something there, and you could probably help.”

“Huh?” 

Collin sat down at their table and pulled Ollie close. “We’re going to make Lisa and Violet realize something at that party. We have to. It’s just gonna take a lot of help.”

Ollie looked Collin dead in the eyes and almost softened. “What do we need?”

“A disco ball,” Collin said immediately, quick enough to make Stephen wince. 

“I hate to be a buzzkill, but that’s gonna be a doozy,” RJ deadpanned. 

Collin tried to kept a straight face, but didn’t quite manage. “I’ll ask around.”

“Anything else?” Ollie closed his eyes, as if he wasn’t ready for the answer. 

Collin tapped on the table for a moment, thinking. “Music, and Risk.”

Stephen sighed.

~~~~~

Violet found out about the party on Thursday. She was at her locker, pulling out bundles of paper and leftover lunch bags, listening to Collin and Max talk about newspaper. 

“Yeah, Dimitri said that the whole thing was technically illegal. You can’t hold anything like that on school grounds,” Max said, looking disturbed by the idea of laws. 

“What, does this mean Garcia’s thing is illegal?” Collin asked. 

Violet slammed her locker shut. “What thing?”

“Oh,” Max muttered. Louder, “Mr. Garcia’s having a birthday party on Friday, at seven in the cafeteria. You coming?”

“Well, it depends,” Violet said, balancing her books on one hip. “Will there be cake?” 

Max nodded. 

“Will it be technically illegal?”

Max nodded again. 

“Then I’m in,” Violet answered. 

“Good,” Max sighed. “We’re going at half past five to set up, but the thing’s at seven.”

Violet’s lips curled, almost smirking, almost smiling. “I’ll be there at seven.”

Getting Lisa to follow was a bit more difficult. Despite promising Risk, Jeff told Collin that she didn’t want to come, and Collin had to ask Johnny for help.

Collin didn’t know the exact details, but Johnny, Stephen, and RJ cornered her after school, along with Isaac. Ollie said they tried bargaining, bribing, threatening, and challenging her to a Yu-Gi-Oh fight, but even he wasn’t sure what made Lisa finally decide to come. 

Stephen said it was the cake that made her go. Collin was fairly certain it was RJ destroying Lisa in a Yu-Gi-Oh battle.

~~~~~

The day of Mr. Garcia’s birthday party arrived fast. 

Collin wasn’t sure where Cody had gotten a disco ball, but he was thankful Stephen and RJ were going to be able to set it up. Johnny and Isaac O’Connor had scrounged up d-jaying equipment, and Max would be in charge of music. Jeff and Cody were going to find some board games, and Ed promised to include risk.

When seven people arrived at the school at half past five, however, they didn’t realize that the person organizing the party wasn’t planning on them being there. 

Mr. Spender paused as several people walked through the cafeteria doors and articulated, “Um.”

Collin stared at him for a few seconds. He stared back. “We’re here to help with the party?” Collin offered, showing Mr. Spender his pile of Risk and Twister. 

“Oh.” Spender blinked. “Oh, I didn’t know you were going to do that. Did you- did you know, Isabel?”

“Yeah,” Isabel called from across the room, where she was hanging up streamers. “They’ve got this plan and they needed to set up a sound system and stuff, so I thought it would be okay.” 

“Oh,” Mr. Spender repeated. “Well, you can... do what you need to do.”

Johnny grinned up at him in thanks, his teeth pointed like a shark’s, then ran off to talk with Max. Collin was surprised to see Dimitri with them, smiling and laughing like he was having a good time. It was… curious, but nice.

Ollie bopped Collin on the shoulder. “I think Stephen and RJ are going to need a little help with the   
disco ball soon, but do you wanna set up the food now?”

Collin regarded Stephen and RJ breaking their backs pushing the ball across the floor. “We may want to do it quickly.”

Ollie’s laughter was deep and quiet, barely noticeable in the din from the rest of the room. “Yeah.”

The food wasn’t much, just some chips and sodas, but it was more than Mr. Spender had provided. For the millionth time, Collin wondered how Max had gotten his hands on so much food, but decided it was better not to ask. It probably wasn’t a good idea to ask about the enormous, light-up ball he had pulled from nowhere, too. 

“So,” Ollie started. “You, uh, gonna try dancing?”

“No,” Collin said definitely. “I’ll stick with standing in the corner trying to hide from Suzy, thanks.”

“Oh.”

They worked in silence, putting out various snacks and- were those Apple Thangs? The school didn’t even have a microwave. Collin sighed. 

“Well,” Ollie said eventually. “I guess I’d better go help with that.” He nodded at the center of the cafeteria floor, where Stephen had broken down and had begun whacking the disco ball with a pinata stick. RJ was lying close, breathing hard, unable to move. The disco ball hadn’t moved an inch from the last time Collin had looked. Ollie leaned back against the snack table and didn’t move to help them.

“Go,” Collin urged. “Otherwise the party’s never gonna happen.”

Ollie sighed noiselessly and headed to the dance floor. 

Collin leaned against the snack table and watched him go, then turned his attention to the d-jay booth. Johnny had begun setting it up along with Isaac, the two of them trying to outdo each other. Max stood behind them, snarking at them and occasionally playing music. Johnny tried to take over, shoving Max out of the way and trying on his headphones, and Collin had never seen Max laugh like that, not in a billion years. Apparently Isaac and Johnny hadn’t either, because they were both awestruck by it. 

Collin tore his eyes away from the booth as Suzy walked through the front doors. With normal clothes and no pocket notebook, she was almost ordinary looking next to Lisa and Violet.

Collin backtracked. Lisa and Violet were walking into the party next to each other. They were- Collin backtracked harder- they were holding hands. In the brightly lit cafeteria, blushes were shining on their faces, and the both of them looked atrociously happy. Collin almost died.

“Well,” Ollie said by Collin’s shoulder. Collin leaned back to look at him, biting his lip. “I guess this means our job is done?” 

“Yeah,” Collin said heavily. 

Ollie shifted on his tiny feet. “If we don’t anything to do here, now, do you wanna… go get crepes or something?”

Collin looked back at the party. Suzy and Isabel were playing Risk together, with Dimitri and Sarah on the other team. Isaac had officially taken over the d-jay booth, and was sharing a piece of cake with Johnny and Max. Lisa and Violet, to almost everyone’s surprise, had taken over the dance floor and were blushing furiously. Mr. Garcia had finally arrived; Mr. Spender was getting him punch. 

Dimitri looked up up from across the room and caught Collin’s eye. He nodded at Ollie, standing behind Collin. In return, Collin raised an eyebrow in Isabel’s direction; Dimitri smiled easily. Collin breathed out at him and turned back to face Ollie. 

“Crepes?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Ollie replied. 

~~~~~

Who was Ollie Oop?

Ollie Oop was the one person Collin would never think liked dogs. Ollie Oop, the guy that once had to stop his friends from punching a two-story tree. Ollie Oop, one of the few people that Suzy’s never tried to write an article on. 

Ollie Oop, the guy Collin was going to go get crepes with in an hour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i should leave now. also: who's seen teen beach movie? asking for a friend. (also for the thing i'm working on)


End file.
